


All The Ever Wanting

by luninosity



Series: Holiday Fic [3]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Developing Relationship, Emotionally Crippled Erik Is Fun To Read, Fluff, Holidays, Love Confessions, M/M, St. Patrick's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-15
Updated: 2012-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-16 09:45:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/538149
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luninosity/pseuds/luninosity
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Saint Patrick's Day at the mansion (written January 2012). I-love-you moments and ugly scarves and sunshine-covered mornings.</p>
            </blockquote>





	All The Ever Wanting

**Author's Note:**

> Title from the Foo Fighters’ “This Is A Call,” because I like it despite having no clue what the heck the lyrics actually mean (if you do, please share!), and it’s an odd random song for what’s really an odd random fic.

Erik has always enjoyed his morning runs. It’s not something he would ever admit to anyone—he has a reputation to uphold, honestly, would anyone find him intimidating if he starts _liking_ things?—but he does enjoy the time, anyway, himself and the stillness, early edges of light just emerging into the sky, full of possibilities and promise and not yet noisy or cluttered with the pain of the world.

The world even smells new, somehow. Green. Like grass. Or dew. Something vivid and hopeful, anyway. He’s not a poet, after all. He just likes mornings.

This particular morning is a warm one, and the sun has come up and the sky shines blue as he jogs back to the mansion, and the blue makes him think about a certain pair of eyes, waiting for him, in theory awake by now—Charles hates mornings with a passion only equal to his loathing for undergraduates who plagiarize and people who talk in movie theaters—and Erik finds himself, for a brief moment, thinking that maybe this is exactly what it means to be happy.

That feeling lasts just about as long as it takes for him to walk into the kitchen and discover Charles, and the children, already at the breakfast table, or at least he assumes that these people are Charles and the children, but on the other hand they might be some strange alternate-universe evil twin versions of themselves—and he’s never borrowing Charles’s guilty-pleasure science-fiction novels again ever, thanks to that thought—considering what everyone is wearing.

Everyone at the table is dressed in green, in some form—in the case of Raven, her entire form—and acting utterly nonchalant about it, as if this is an expected development. Even Charles is wearing green, a frighteningly unattractive scarf that sits proudly atop today’s fluffily oversized cardigan, and Erik wonders whether he’s missed some sort of bizarre team-building memo, and if so whether it’s also too late to rethink this whole team idea in the first place.

But Charles looks up and smiles, no doubt sensing him in the doorway despite the fact that Erik knows he hasn’t made any noise, and that smile reaches out and tugs him into its orbit regardless of any lingering resistance.

“Good morning,” Charles says. “Breakfast?” _And I’m happy to know that you like the way I smile_.

“Maybe. Why are you all so…colorful?” _I like the way you do other things, as well_. He sends Charles a rapid-fire succession of images—last night, this morning, pale skin and blue silk sheets, heat and wetness and the echo of that luxurious voice moaning his name—and watches Charles attempt to inhale a mouthful of very hot tea. Success.

He’s still not certain what this is between them, so new and bright and unexpectedly sweet. He’s still learning how to sleep in the same bed with another person at night, how to wake up and find someone beside him and smile instead of reaching for the closest weapon. These things are difficult enough on their own, without trying to discover a name for them in his lopsided vocabulary of blood and metal and pain.

They get a little easier, every time that Charles smiles in his direction, still wanting him, not betraying him, not hurting him, just openly and honestly and beautifully _here_.

Like the way Charles is smiling at him now, warm and welcoming through the faint haze of heat above what Erik guesses is a mug of tea. He can’t actually see the mug, because Charles has cradled it protectively in both hands as if defending his caffeine from the cold outside world. But he’s completely certain it’s black tea, anyway, with just enough sugar stirred in to be noticeable when Erik kisses him.

He just knows the way that Charles prefers his morning tea. That’s not a large or difficult thing. Just tea. And tea already has a name; he shouldn’t need to seek out a new word for that one, even when he catches himself watching the movement of that elegant throat, as Charles swallows.

Just tea. Really.

“It’s Saint Patrick’s Day, apparently.” Oh, right. He’s asked a question. Charles, answering, sounds amused by this random tidbit of information; Erik just waits for some fact that clarifies its relevance to _him_.

“Which means that one is required to wear green, it seems. Or find oneself pinched black and blue by one’s supposed friends.”

Which, he supposes, explains Hank and Raven touching each other so frequently, at the far end of the table. Not that they seem to be in much pain. “All right…”

“It’s commemorative, I believe. Supposedly the namesake saint drove all the snakes out of Ireland on this day.”

“Really?” He spends a second thinking about that. “So…some sort of special ability? He could communicate with snakes?” That could be a very useful talent, actually; snakes can be found more or less _everywhere_ , after all, and considering the range of abilities currently grouped around the breakfast table, the idea isn’t that far-fetched.

“Oh, fascinating,” Charles muses, blue eyes going all intrigued across the steam of his mug of tea, “so you think Saint Patrick had some sort of genetic mutation that allowed him to comprehend and command nonverbal reptilian cues, then? Because that would—”

“You idiots,” Raven says, surfacing briefly from her preoccupation with Hank, “it’s a metaphor, it’s about religious conflict or something, honestly, it’s a good thing you two have each other to talk to, because the rest of us are just planning to go make green milkshakes and drink beer—Charles, shut up, please, you can’t say anything about drinking alcohol ever—and have _fun_. And also, Erik, _you’re_ not wearing green.”

Charles starts to look alarmed, at that. _Ah, Erik—you may want to leave the room before—_

Sean leans over to Alex and says, in what’s probably meant to be a whisper, “Five dollars if _you_ pinch him.”

To which Alex whispers back, equally loudly, “Not enough money in the _world_.”

“I,” Erik breaks in, because he can see where this is going and he is not impressed, “need to shower. Now. And I plan to wear whatever clothing is most easily found in my closet, regardless of what day it is. And, Sean, if that hand moves any closer to me, I cannot be held responsible if you end up impaled on your own fork.”

The hand disappears out of sight beneath the table. The rest of Sean appears to want to follow.

“Erik, really,” Charles says, but the corners of his mouth are twitching. _Please don’t impale the children._

_You know I wouldn’t. At least not without a very good reason._

_Yes, I know._ “Still…” Charles gets up, as Erik makes his way around the table and toward the long expanse of beckoning stairs, and follows, leaving his unfinished tea on the table.

Erik pauses to shoot him a smile, at the bottom of the staircase. “Something you needed, Charles?” _Coming to join me in the shower?_ He’d thought he’d left Charles very much satisfied and sleepy and comfortable, that morning, but he’s certainly more than happy to oblige if those blue eyes're in the mood for more.

_Erik!_ Charles actually blushes, at that. _You aren’t tired? You were the one doing more of the—and that—_

_You enjoyed THAT, as I recall._

_So did you!_

_So, is that a yes?_

_Of course it is._ “But I did have a different reason for pursuing you, you know. Here.” Charles reaches up to loop his own ugly scarf around Erik’s sweaty neck. “At least they’ll leave you alone, if you hang on to this for the day.”

And Erik stares down into blue eyes that hold nothing but affectionate and well-meaning concern, and half of him wants to snap, _I don’t need your help, I can take care of myself_ , and the other half wants to get down on his knees and beg Charles to take care of him always, in all these tiny unnecessary ways.

Which is, frankly, horrifying. He doesn’t _want_ anyone to want to take care of him. He can’t afford attachments. Distractions. He can’t afford to care, and so no one else has any business caring, in return, for him.

Charles half-smiles, and then looks away, and Erik suddenly wonders how loudly he’s been projecting those thoughts, because Charles takes a step back and audibly takes refuge in vocalized speech. “You did say you wanted to shower, and you can probably manage that more efficiently without me; don’t let me, ah, distract you, if you want to clean up properly.”

And now Erik doesn’t know what to say in reply. The gemstone-shaded eyes have dropped away from his, still sparkling but not quite as warmly as they’d been just a second ago.

Suddenly he feels distinctly guilty. And he can’t quite work out why.

“Charles,” he says, and then doesn’t have a sentence waiting to follow the sound of that name, when it bounces back at them off of the broad railings and antique wood of the staircase.

Charles raises both eyebrows at him. “Yes?”

“Don’t you—you should—you need this one, don’t you? To fend off the children?” He unwinds the scarf from his neck. Vaguely waves one end in the direction of those sapphire eyes.

“No, I’ve got more scarves somewhere. Or gloves. I’m fairly certain I have a pair with green stripes…” Charles is still smiling at him, but it’s a more wistful smile, now. Worrisome, Erik thinks. Not _right_.

“I’m very sure they’re too afraid to pinch me, in any case. I don’t need to take your defenses away,” he tries to explain, desperately choosing words to fling into the air. None of them help with the guilt. None of them make Charles smile, not a real smile, again.

“If you don’t want it,” Charles says, to the listening steps and the silent banister, and Erik says, “No, I just meant, you should, it’s not even my tradition, Charles, and I’ve already threatened Sean with a fork,” and thinks _I’m sorry_ , as loudly as he can. For whatever he’s done. For anything he might’ve done.

And Charles looks up from the knots and lines in the ancient wood, and gives a little one-shouldered shrug. _Nothing to forgive. You don’t need me to take care of you; I do know that. I’m sorry I sometimes forget._

_You_ —

“It’s not precisely my tradition, either; if it makes you feel any better, I forgot as well. Raven reminded me. After she pinched me.” Charles pushes up one oversized sweater sleeve. There’s an already-formed bruise there, deceptively unimportant in size and startlingly dark next to a confetti-bright sprinkling of freckles, and at that sight Erik’s protect-Charles instinct spins into overdrive without any intervention from his brain.

“Charles, you—”

“Oh, sorry! I didn’t mean to worry you. Don’t make that face at me; it looks worse than it is. I just bruise easily. Always have.” And for the briefest second Erik isn’t certain that they’re talking about skin.

Charles starts to shake the sleeve back into place, and Erik puts out a hand and catches his wrist and runs long fingertips along fragile flesh, lines of precious freckles like gold-dust, beckoning trails that stop abruptly at the edge of the tiny wounded darkness.

He’s still wearing the hideously green scarf, and the wool brushes warmly against his neck where he’s all clammy now from the post-run sweat, and the fabric even smells like Charles, hot tea and clean soap and old books and tartly sweet pineapple because Charles had been eating pineapple slices at breakfast, all those ages ago, this morning, before Erik had walked into the room and disrupted that cozy little world and made those blue eyes glance away.

He still can’t afford to care. But it’s too late for that, it’s always been too late, it’s been too late ever since Charles dove recklessly into freezing ocean water and pulled both of them back from the depths together.

And there’s no going back now.

Because he does care. About every bruise and every freckle and every smile, every genetics discussion over mugs of tea in the morning, every challenging moral debate over chessboards at night, every fuzzy sweater, and every glance he’s ever gotten from those oceanic blue eyes.

He’s always cared.

Would’ve been fantastic if he’d realized this fact five minutes ago. Before he’d trampled solidly on Charles’s feelings.

_Erik_ , Charles says, a bit hesitantly, _I enjoy you disrupting my world, you know._

_Charles,_ Erik answers, _I’d like to keep your scarf. If you truly don’t mind._

_You would?_

_Yes. I would. And I’m sorry again. I know you were trying to help._

_I—_

“A deal, then,” Erik offers, out loud because he wants Charles to know that he means this in every possible way, with the long stretch of the staircase and the quiet walls as witnesses. “You tell me when you’re feeling…likely to be bruised. So that I can take care of you. And you can give me whatever ridiculous items of clothing you would like me to wear, and I will wear them for you, and you can take care of me, also, forever. If you would like that.”

He says it all again in their heads, too. Meaning every single word. With everything he is.

Charles does smile, then, morning light coming up over endless oceans. “Agreed.” _Forever_.

And Erik meets that gaze, the two of them standing there together at the foot of the steps, errant sunbeams wandering in through open windows and quietly spreading irregular patches of warmth across the dark wood of the floor, and the only thought he has room for, in that moment, comes with the uncomplicated obviousness of unquestionable truth.

_Charles?_

_Yes?_

_I love you._

_Oh—you—_

_You know I mean that._

_Yes, I do. I DO._ "You're still wearing my scarf." _  
_

_I love your scarf. I love you._ "I think I'd like to see your scarf back on you, however..."

"That's not generally how one wears a scarf, Erik." _Upstairs?_

“It’s how I’d like _you_ to wear your scarf.” _Oh yes._

"Yes, then." _Erik?_

_Yes?_

"I love my scarf, as well." _And also I love you_.


End file.
